The movie was shot in 23 days in August 2000.
In 2018, Daniel Franzese revealed that Bijou Phillips had been extremely cruel to him and subjected him to a lot of homophobic and fat-shaming bullying while they were on the set, saying that she kept trying to goad him into admitting that he was gay years before he came out as such and that she laughed at his appearance when he removed his shirt at a pool party and had even twisted one of his nipples. He also said that the producers looked the other way and allowed her behavior to continue as she came from a famous family. However Franzese did note that his co-stars Michael Pitt, Brad Renfro and Nick Stahl all repeatedly and vocally stood up for him and called Phillips out on her behavior, with Stahl trying to convince her to apologize.
Although the events upon which the film is based take place in 1993, the film itself is deliberately not set in 1993, but in 2000 when it was filmed, to avoid any potential problems with anachronisms.
Bobby Kent and his family were Iranian. He moved to the U.S. during the Iranian Revolution in 1979 when he was six. "Kent" is his anglicized last name, the family name originally being Khayam.